Pressure Washing
Pressure Washing vs Soft Washing: Which Does Your Home Need?
Two cleans that look similar and cost about the same — but put the wrong one on the wrong surface and you either strip paint and crack render, or pay for a wash that doesn’t last. Here’s how to tell which is which.
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They sound like the same job with a knob turned down. They’re not. Pressure washing and soft washing use different equipment, different chemistry and a different amount of force — and the surfaces they suit barely overlap.
The actual difference
Pressure washing cleans with force: a high-pressure jet that physically blasts grime off a hard surface. On concrete it’s the fastest way back to bare, even colour.
Soft washing cleans with chemistry: a low-pressure application — closer to a garden hose — of a solution that kills mould, algae and lichen at the root, is left to dwell, then gently rinsed. The force never does the work; the solution does.
That’s why “just turn the pressure down” isn’t soft washing. A low-pressure rinse with no pre-treatment on an algae-stained wall only moves water around.
Surfaces that take pressure washing
Hard, dense surfaces that weather grime rather than absorb it: concrete driveways, paths and slabs, exposed aggregate, clay and concrete pavers, stone paving, and brick paving or retaining walls that are still in sound condition. On these, full pressure lifts years of build-up without harming what’s underneath.
Surfaces that need soft washing
Anything painted, coated or porous: rendered and painted walls, weatherboard and timber cladding, fibre-cement and composite sheeting, roof tiles — especially older or coated ones — heritage brick and lime mortar, and painted trim like eaves and fascias. Put high pressure on any of these and it doesn’t just clean; it strips paint, drives water behind cladding, cracks tile coatings and blows out mortar joints. Those aren’t cleaning results, they’re repair bills.
The trap in both directions
Too much pressure on a soft surface does damage that’s instant and permanent. Heritage surfaces are the worst case — soft-fired brick and lime mortar can be wrecked in seconds and only rebuilt by hand. We covered that on its own in High Pressure Ruins Old Brick.
Too little method on a hard surface is the other failure. A plain rinse of a mossy driveway knocks the top off the growth and leaves the roots, so it looks clean for a few weeks and then comes back. That’s the difference a pre-treatment step makes — it isn’t an upsell, it’s what stops the regrowth.
Most houses need both
A typical job isn’t one or the other. The driveway and paths get pressure washed; the rendered wall behind them and the painted eaves above get soft washed — in the same visit, and in that order, so the wall’s run-off lands on a path that hasn’t been cleaned yet. Cleaning one surface and leaving the rest usually looks worse than not starting, because the clean patch gives the eye something to measure the rest against.
How to tell what you’ve got
A few quick checks. If a surface is horizontal and hard underfoot, it’s almost always a pressure-wash job. If it’s painted, rendered or timber, it’s a soft wash. Scratch a mortar joint with a key — if it powders, it’s lime, and it needs low pressure. If the roof is older than about fifteen years or has been coated, soft wash it or you risk the coating. And if you’re not sure, that’s reasonable — it’s worth asking before the machine comes out, not after.
Every surface we quote is assessed for material, age and condition first, so the method and the equipment are matched to the job rather than picked in advance. See what we clean and how, or request a free quote and we’ll confirm the right approach for your property.
Not sure which method your job needs?